The Soul of the World
by Raven's Spark
Summary: 20 years after the fall of Malefor, the Dragon Realms find themselves in a time of peace. Spark lives in the city of Verona, working as a private detective with his partner Kat. Spark has secrets, connections to the Dark Master's former servants. As darkness descends once again, Spark finds that those connections may actually help him light the flame that saves the world. (Ch. 1)
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: Welcome, reader, it's been a long time, hasn't it. I haven't written for Spyro in several years. Time sure does fly, doesn't it. Anyways, I'm back, and hopefully ready to complete a story. Or at least get passed the first couple chapters before I stop.**

 **This story is an amalgamation of several story ideas and characters as well as concepts and other types of world-building. I basically decided to take all the characters and ideas I've had over the years and put them together in one story. Hopefully it comes out good.**

 **Now, before I go and leave you with the prologue, I just want you to know that this is only a taste, a setting of the scene and a short summary of the past 20 years. Don't you worry, though, I won't put out a prologue and then leave you again, I'm already nearly finished with the first chapter. I just decided that this works better as a prologue instead of a preface for it, and because of that there's some 600 words I need to put into the first chapter to even it out.**

 **And I think I've talked your head off enough. Enjoy the prologue, and keep an eye out for more!**

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Twenty years. It had been twenty years since Malefor was defeated. The world knew he was gone. There was no body, when all was said and done, but then, there were no heroes either. Somehow, though, everyone knew Malefor was gone, just like everyone knew Spyro and Cynder were the ones who defeated him, the ones who pieced the world back together. How dragonkind had survived at all was as much a mystery as anything else.

But survive it did. Flourished, even. An era of peace and prosperity began, something not seen by many since Malefor came into power. Destroyed towns and cities were rebuilt. Families were reunited, prisoners were made free. Things were definitely different, but at the same time, they were much the same. Change came to the Dragon Realms, ushered in by a great tragedy, but worth it in the end. Or so the dragons chose to believe.

The differences of this new world were not always readily apparent, some things more obvious than others. Spyro may have put the world back together, but it wasn't exactly the same as he had assumed it would be. Even if he had known, it would have been too late. Things on the surface, things below the crust, even as deep as the planet's core, were changed. The world had the same foundation, the mainstays of life before were mostly the same, but the details weren't always quite right. Spyro had rebuilt in broad strokes, and either didn't know how or didn't have the time to make sure the small bits were the same. Perhaps it just wasn't a possibility in the first place.

Despite the occasional change of scenery, life in the Dragon Realms returned to normal. But just as the world's details were not completely accurate, neither were the details of society. Peace may have been prevalent, wide-spread, but there was a bit more to things than there had been before. Crime, while not constant, was beginning to rise. Even as the dragons longed for a completely peaceful and cohesive society, things began to change. Different ideas of how to do things began to spread. Cities and towns, while once connected through bonds of ideals and cohesion, were now at times completely different.

Some cities were ruled by council, some by a singular ruler. Some towns were simply a collection of homes and farms put together for safety and community, and yet others were trying to compete with the larger cities so they themselves could also be large cities. Suffice it to say, commerce and trade became the name of the game. Funny how close the desire for such things came to the same type of greed that caused Malefor to fall to darkness.

In fact, it was almost as if something in the very core of the world itself had been changed. Dragons, by nature, are connected to the spirit of the world. They reflect what lies inside; out of all the other races in the Realms, dragons are the most accurate representations of the nature of the world. Hence their biological connection to the elements. As such, any change in the world's spirit would be a change in them. And little did dragonkind know, but something was causing the world's spirit to change, taking them along with it.

Dragons were, of course, always known for their desires. But while before it had just been an exaggeration, it now seemed that greed drove a dragon more often than not. To steal. To cheat. Even, at times, to kill. Crime, once a thing that happened only on the rarest of occasions, had now become a common occurrence. An actual problem. A problem that needed to be solved.


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Sorry for the longer than expected wait. I wanted to write more for it, but things didn't pan out as I liked. So, I finally decided to post it as is. I'm busy moving at the time of publishing this, so I won't be writing much for a couple weeks.**

 **Enjoy the first chapter! Review if you feel like it!**

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The midday sun filtered through the green leaf canopy of the trees in the Vineriver Forest. A clearing opened in the middle of the forest, one of the few places in it's entirety that the treetops did not completely cover, where unadulterated sunlight shone down.

The sunlight glinted off black scales, shimmering with white as the light reflected off them. Ebony scales, while once a telltale sign of a servant of shadow, were now more commonly associated with dragons that simply wanted to move on from their dark pasts and reclaim their place in the light alongside the rest of their kin.

This particular dragon lay in the middle of the clearing, and seemed to be fast asleep. Sunlight continued to shine down upon him, the light drawn to the blackness of his scales even as they caused it to bounce back off. Unlike most dragons, this one did not appear to have any horns, giving his head a decidedly snake-like appearance, one not helped by his slender form. One might even mistake him for a female, something that happened often.

Regardless of his form, the dragon was not insusceptible to heat, and the constant bombardment by the sun's rays were starting to wear on him. That, coupled with the light reflecting off his scales and against his closed eyelids, caused him to eventually wake up.

His eyes slowly opened, first his outer lids came open and then the inner membrane slid away. The dragon immediately regretted that second action as sunlight now burned into his irises, unfiltered by that second layer of protection, and he clenched his eyes shut again. His front claws immediately came up and covered his eyes, further blocking out the sun.

"Aaaaarg..."

He growled out in pain, clenching his teeth together tightly. He couldn't help but wonder why, exactly, he had put himself in this situation to begin with. Even with the added pain to help him wake up, his mind was still slightly clouded from his sleep. He lay in this position for several moments as he fought to clear his mind and remember the events of the day before.

This introspection did not last long, however, as the sun still continued to beat down on him and, with his black scales, the heat was beginning to become unbearable. It seemed he would have to try and remember why he found himself in this damnable clearing later.

He reluctantly moved his claws away from his head and, keeping his eyes firmly shut this time, he picked himself up off the ground and scrambled forward. His position in the middle of the clearing was unfortunate and it took him a good several seconds longer than he would have liked to make it to the protective shade of the treeline.

Once there, he sat himself down and slowly opened his eyes, wincing in pain. He blinked several times, his vision marred by a blackish, vaguely circular shape that followed wherever he looked. After several seconds, his eyes finally adjusted, the spot slowly faded away and his vision became clear again.

He growled once again, though this time it sounded a bit more like a grumbling sigh than something angry.

"Black dragons are not built for sunlight..." He muttered aloud, shaking his head, "Take our place in the light my tail."

The dragon's voice, while growly, further added to his less-than-male appearance. It wasn't completely feminine, exactly, but it lacked a certain masculinity as well. The oddest thing was, it didn't sound like he was young, either. The dragon, it seemed, was simply quite androgynous.

He took a deep breath and then released it. Then, he stood up and began to take in his surroundings. As it was, he knew he was in a place with trees. Beyond that, he was still groggy enough to not know anything else from a simple glance around.

In an effort to wake himself up more, the dragon stretched out. This movement accentuated the snake-like qualities of his figure, which went beyond a slender figure and a hornless head. This dragon was long, oddly so, and he didn't really stand that tall either, especially for a dragon that was, ostensibly, male. His tail, too, was odd in that it almost matched his body length in size, giving the impression that if he sat with it wrapped around his paws like a cat, it would wrap around him not once, but twice. It ended with a wicked looking spike, too, which coupled with it's length gave it the overall appearance of a deadly precision weapon.

Finally, his wings stretched out as well, appearing almost magically from their place at his sides. They had blended in so well with his scales and held so closely to his body that they were virtually unnoticeable until put into use. The wings themselves weren't all too remarkable, especially when compared to the rest of his appearance. They were proportional to his form, which made them slightly longer than a normal dragon's, and they seemed to be as fragile as the rest of the dragon, but otherwise that was it.

Curling his wings back against his body and standing up straight again, the dragon once more shook his head. His mind was still slightly foggy, and he still had a hard time remembering how and why he was here, but he could now think a bit straighter. Enough so that he finally was able to get his bearings.

He knew this forest, knew it was Vineriver. In fact, he knew this exact location as well. This was one of many areas he had scouted out after the war with Malefor ended, working with the people of the then newly established settlement of Verona to root out any leftover followers of the dark master. Since then he had found himself coming back to this forest for various reasons, such as camping with friends or investigating mysterious occurrences that occasionally were reported in the area. But he could not recall any of those reasons being the one for why he was here.

With a final growling sigh and shake of his head, the dragon decided it was a mystery he wasn't going to solve on his own and that he should make his way back home. He knew that this particular clearing was not all that far away from an offshoot of the Scaleshine River that flowed through the forest and led back to Verona, which was built on it's banks in the area that was formerly known as the Crowward Grasslands.

He knew the river was north of the clearing and that he would have to follow it west to get out of the forest. The main problem he had was that Verona was on the northern banks, whereas he was on the southern ones and the river was wider and more dangerous at this time of year because of the snow melt from the Dragonridge Mountains. He would either need to cross at one of the dilapidated bridges that dotted it's path in the forest, or he would need to deal with the public crossing in the grasslands, which meant dealing with guards and a toll. He didn't have money on him and no desire to get into an argument, but he also didn't want to try his luck with one of the potentially dangerous, old bridges.

All that went through his head before the tired dragon realized he had been forgetting one key thing. He could fly. That realization struck him like a slap across the face and he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it before. He was a dragon, not a mole, or a cheetah, or some other grounded being. He had wings and he could use them and it was embarrassing that he had forgotten it. He was beginning to think maybe he had been drugged, or at the very least very drunk, the night before.

The only thing that soothed his self-bruised ego was that it was currently daytime and he didn't like flying in the sun. But he'd have to make an exception for today if he wanted to get back to Verona before the sun set again and avoid all the trouble crossing the river could cause him.

So, the dragon reluctantly trotted back out into the clearing. Now that he was awake and ready for it, he wasn't as bothered by the sun and it's light. He spread his wings, and with a mighty push from his back legs he launched himself into the air and began to flap, buffeting the grass below him and rising slowly.

As he rose up, the trees began to shrink below him and he could start to get a good view of his surroundings.

Below him was the clearing in which he had awakened, and all around it a canopy of leaves and branches stretched out, occasionally dotted with other small clearings. He saw the Scaleshine river to the north, cutting through the forest in a swathe of furiously running water, an area where no leafy canopy covered.

Out to the west he could see the grasslands, or what remained of them. Where before there had been nothing but rolling green grasslands cut into thirds by the river that flowed through it, there was now farmland. The grasslands had been turned into miles of cultivated crops of all kinds, interspersed with various species of domesticated animals. So much had changed in twenty years.

As the dragon began to fly northwest, in the distance he could see the small city of Verona, rising up in the middle of the farmland, the only break in the monotony of crops and small houses. The city was built in the curve of the Scaleshine river where the stream from the Dragonridge Mountains diverged into two, one leading south to the Gillcrest Gulf and the other leading east through the forest that the dragon now flew over.

From a distance the only thing that really set Verona out was it's walls. The walls stood tall around the circular city, thick and imposing. Four large gates, one at each of the cardinal directions, were the only entrance into the city. The only way into or out of the city was through these gates, unless special permission to fly was granted by Verona's ruler, Prince.

Apart from these walls and the gates, the city itself was quite quaint. Only one building rose up above the walls of the city, the Temple, which was modeled after the one in Warfang. The Temple was the centerpiece of the entire city and acted both as city hall and Prince's residence.

From this distance, that was all the dragon could see, and he would not have a chance to see more, because as soon as he had cleared the forest and the river, he had to land. Flying over the area was expressly prohibited in order to preserve the safety of the city and farms.

With a sigh, the dragon began his descent, his wings ceasing their rhythmic beating and extending out to glide him down. He landed on the edge of the forest, just past the river, where he alighted in the middle of a crop of what looked to be tomatoes.

He would have to walk home from here, but at least he wouldn't have to deal with the river crossing anymore.


End file.
